Hello Welders and gear heads!

[Jay7]

I'm very new to fabricating and welding. I came here looking to read as much as I can on the subject of Tig Aluminum Welding. I'm looking for a nice used unit I can use in my home basement to teach myself how to weld. I'm very much into car racing and fabricating seems to be the missing link in my life and I think its about time I teach myself how to weld. I will be mainly making myself Intercooler tubing, Turbo/Header Manifolds and misc brackets etc. If someone can point me into the right direction on which unit I could use in my home basement for these type of jobs I would greatly appreciate it. I'd like to buy a used unit but dont know if I need a gas tank unit or not. Guess I have lots of reading to do.

Thanx...

[specter]

Hi Ya Jay7 and Welcome to the Welding Web Family. Well if you search out the General Welding forum it will give you a few ideas on possible welders. Also wander through the Manufacturers Product forum to see what folks say about the various brands available. The type of welder you choose will depend alot on your welding experience level. Being new you might want to look into something like the MillerMatic lineup.

[mot krig]

Hey man- welcome.

I've been researching welders a lot lately trying to figure out what would work best for me. I ended up with a millermatic 135 MIG for little stuff, and tacking stuff together. I'm also looking for a syncrowave 180 or 200, maybe 250 if I find a good deal on one for tig, and to give me al welding capabilities. If you like red the lincolns are supposed to be good too, I just like blue and the little lincolns looked cheaper/plasticy to me.

you might want to post up what power you have available. If you only got 110v you're going to be very limited, and wont be able to tig without spending a ton of money on an inverter unit.

Read up - there's more than a few guys who've documented their decision making process.

[Jay7]

Thanx for the suggestions, I just setup 220v in my basement. Still doing alot of reading on which tig unit to purchase so many different options to learn about and price ranges are crazy lol..

[mot krig]

Yea, there is a TON of information on them. Definitely something you will want to do your homework on. I haven't bought one yet, but I know I'd be real mad dropping 1-2k on a welder that wasn't what I thought it was.

how many amps do you have available? That will limit your welder - but just doing auto stuff it sounds like a Sync 180 would be fine. I think a decent price is around $1000 for one w/ all the accessories and a tank of argon.

Also, check out the miller forum (or hobart or whatever machine you like) to get more information on the specs of the machines.

[Jay7]

Well after having a nice talk with a tech rep at Miller he recommended me the
Miller Diversion 180 AC DC Tig Welder # 907460 unit which is brand new but a new version of the 165 model. He says this unit would work best for what I need to fabricate/weld and be able to be used in my home basement. Still doing research but this seems to fit my budget best compaired to the Dynasty model he also recommended at about double the price. I'll look into the Sync 180 aswell but I dont think I have the AMPs to power the sync machines as he said the sync200 was out the question for my basement.